Does the Intel-Mac commercial make you want to switch to AMD CPUs? (1 Viewer)

[Patrick Sun]

It does for me. It's like Intel is saying that anyone using PC uses them for menial boring tasks, but somehow if a Mac is doing the tasks, it's such a special experience, a life-altering one, for sure.

 

[Scott L]

Just something to munch on:

http://youtube.com/w/iMac-G5-vs-iMac...s%20mac%20boot

And fwiw, I'm pretty sure the commercial in question was made by Apple instead of Intel, which is why it seems anti-PC.

 

[JamesED]

Wait, you aren't using AMD already?

 

[Patrick_S]

Intel has faltered badly as of late so much so that I already switch by making my last purchase an AMD 64 processor.

Even my friends who work for Intel and have for years laughed at AMD acknowledge that AMD is now kicking their ass especially when it comes to 64 bit processing.

Recent news stories speculate that Intel is now 2 years behind AMD.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

CJ

 

[Steve Felix]

It seems like exactly the wrong time to be touting Intel. I just bought a dual core AMD.

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Honestly, I wonder why Aple went with Intel, since their stated eason was to push down power consumption [and heat dissipation] in their notebook computers to reasonable levels. Whoever you believe has the processing-power edge, it's been clear for some time that AMD chips use a lot less power at equivalent performance levels.
I'm using one myself.

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

I came across this the the other day. Ahh, how things change.



Have been a strictly AMD guy ever since they launched their XP line. For gaming, graphics, and video, I haven't found anything better especially when you factor in the all important $.

 

[Patrick_S]

It's because of Notebooks that they went with Intel. If they were only looking at desktops they probably would have gone with AMD.

 

[MarkHastings]

I'm still trying to figure out where all the hot babes (in bikini's) are whenever I open a bottle of soda or beer.

 

[Carlo_M]

I don't really have a stake in any of the companies (I own both P4 & AMD64 machines, as well as an iPod). However I will say this, my laptop's mobile AMD64 3200 (running at 2GHz with 512MB of PC2700RAm) transcodes videos ~50-70% faster than my P4 3.0 GHz desktop (with a killer ASUS board and 1GB PC3200 RAM). The P4 is the newer machine of the two and should blow it away, but doesn't for whatever reason (I'm using videora to transcode videos to H.264 iPod-compatible files).

 

[Steve Felix]

Carlo, that's exactly what I want to hear. I have the exact same P4 setup and I bought the AMD64 to speed up video work. Can't wait to install it...

 

[DaveF]

I've not seen that ads, but the switch to Intel makes the Mac even more enticing to me.

Before, it was difficult to compare PowerPC and then G3/4/5 processor performance to Pentium 2/3/4 performance and know how the Mac stacked up to a PC, especially for a given price point.

Now, I feel I have a better sense of cost/performance since the hardware is much more similar to that of a PC.

I'm also hoping that VirtualPC will soon be able to run at nearly native speeds and it will be possible to dual-boot to WindowsXP (or Vista) from a Mac.

 

[Ken Chan]

HyperThreading might help a little if it's on, but the main thing would be whether the program is compiled/optimized for the P4.

 

[Zack Gibbs]

Carlo, it sounds like there's more at play than just the processor. There are a lot of small things that can affect video processing speeds, simply changing the destination drive of the output file can cut times in half on even the slowest machines. I'd ask around about it if you're at all interested in getting similar performance on the P4.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

a lot of people see the clock speed on the P4s and assume that it will be faster than the amd counterpart. there is a reason intel is abandoning the architecture behind P4 and moving forward with what the pentium M is based on. the P4 was a miserable failure and sucked up way too much power for the performance, now amd is in the lead on the desktop.

CJ

 

[Tekara]

Yeah, if intel furthers their work with the mobile chips I'll be in heaven. The pentium Ms are some of the best chips out there; enough so that I have been heavily considering building my next HTPC around one.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

pretty much all of their future chips are based upon the pentium M. and yes, those chips are pretty sweet. i've been amd only for years now, but i dont regret buying a laptop with the pentium M.

CJ

 

[Carlo_M]

I really doubt it's more than the processors given this:

Transcoding the *SAME* VOB files to identical spec'd H.264 files on these two machines, with the target disc being the C: drive in both instances:

1 year old Desktop (custom-built by yours truly)
P4 3.0 GHz w/ HTT
Asus Mobo w/ Intel chipset (forgot model # but it was near top of the line 1 year ago)
1 GHz matched PC3200 DDR RAM
ATI Radeon 9600XT 128MB
120GB Seagate Barracuda 7200rpm HD

vs.

nearly 2 year old eMachines laptop M6809 laptop
AMD 64 3200 (2000Mhz)
512 PC2700 DDR RAM
ATI Mobile 9600 64MB
80GB Seagate 7200rpm HD (replaced this year)

So the destination drive being the same, the OS being the same (and constantly defragged, upgraded & patched), I keep both machines "lean and mean"-not a lot of useless/extraneous processes running (can you tell I work closely w/ IT people?), the desktop I built should blow away my laptop in most regards. Using this one program, which is very CPU intensive (Videora), the Mobile AMD transcodes video at nearly 2:1 (probably 1.7:1) and the P4 desktop at just about 1:1 with identical program settings.

 

[Christ Reynolds]

no, it shouldnt. i dont know why you think it should (newer? faster clock speed?)...but that sounds about right to me. the target drive, ram, and video card are irrelevant in this case. unless one of them is bogging down the system, of course. you are just experiencing the difference between the P4 and amd64 processors.

CJ